Here’s a collection of border elements taken from the pages of nineteenth and early twentieth century type specimen books of various American foundries. Download the PDF provided for each font for simple guides to constructing various borders. All characters have identical widths, so use spaces between left and right-side elements. For best results, set solid (no extra leading) and use flush left, flush right or center justification to assure proper alignment.

Georges Peignot designed the font Nicolas Cochin based on copper engravings of the 18th century and Charles Malin cut the typeface in 1912 for the Paris foundry Deberny & Peignot. The font is named after the French engraver Charles Nicolas Cochin (1715-1790) although its style had little to do with that of the copper artist. Nicholas Cochin is a freer variation of another Peignot font, Cochin, a bit more balanced and elegant.

Leighton is a four-weight serif font family that was created in 1993 by Paul Hickson (P&P Hickson) and Steve Jackaman (ITF) exclusively for ITF’s Red Rooster Collection. Its designs are loosely based on the typeface Lectura, which was designed in 1966 by Dick Dooijes for the Amsterdam Foundry. Leighton is a conservative, demi-serif font in a Dutch style. It is ideal for upscale corporate projects and excels at any size.

This willowy wonder is based on Morris Fuller Benton’s Stymie Obelisk, one in a series of typefaces he designed for American Type Founders in the 1930s. An obvious choice when real estate is at a premium, its classic forms will add just the right amount of punch to any headline it graces. Both versions include complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1524 character sets, with localization for Moldovan, Romanian and Turkish.

The original release notes from England’s Stephenson Blake Type Foundry say it all: “a type of some waywardness in design, judged from any typographical standard…a type that seems unable to decide whether to be a roman or a script." Stephenson Blake called their release "Recherché"— sought after or in great demand, which seems quite appropriate. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Casablanca is a decorative sans serif font family. It was designed and produced in 1997 by Steve Jackaman (International TypeFounders). Jackaman loosely based the designs on the Carlos Winkow typeface ‘Electra’ from the Spanish foundry, Nacional, circa early 1940’s. Casablanca has a clean, Art Deco, jazz, and/or noir film feel. It sets nicely at any size, and brings an air of bold mystery to the projects it is applied in.

Dom Casual is a very condensed script, almost monotone, with irregular vertical strokes ending at different heights, and which suggests a freehand effect. It was designed by Pete Dom in 1951 for American Type Founders. As its name suggests, the Dom Casual font gives the appearance of a quick brush-like lettering and is suitable for setting titles, subheadings and short copy. There is some variations of stress in the rounded letters.

Oceanside Sans is a display typeface produced in 2022 by Bepop Font Foundry. This typeface was born out of a month-long trip to the Bahamas. The scenery, both natural and architectural, was stunning, yet restrained. Each settlement featured its own flavor of beautiful hand-painted signs promoting local businesses - fresh fish & Conch, liquor, ice, gifts, and more. Oceanside pays homage to the visual vernacular of the islands we visited during our stay.

This elegant monocase design is based on a nineteenth-century offering from Britain’s Stephenson Blake Foundry named "Fry’s Ornamented No. 2". Stylish, witty and debonair, it will add grace and charm to any project. The font features bracketed fleurons in the greater than and less than positions, and no math operators. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

A revival of sorts, Freaky Frog BF is modeled after an 1887 design from Central Type Foundry, called Grimaldi. Much warmth and charm have been instilled into the original design through among other means, reworked contours and serifs. Contours are smoothened, liberated from its roughness, while serifs have become somewhat concave. Verticals and horizontals appear to "swell" owed in part to flared shapes. The overall effect, I believe, is one of pure typographic endearment.

For years, the print ads for the Hickok Jewelry Company [renowned for their line of men's belts, suspenders, wallets, cufflinks, etc.] featured its name and related main line ad copy hand-lettered in a condensed monoline with Art Deco styling. This has been reproduced in Fashionable JNL, available in both regular and oblique versions. For those of you who are wondering: yes, the founder of the company was a distant relative of "Wild Bill" Hickok.

Chatnarong Jingsuphatada is a Thailand based typeface designer of foundry Typesketchbook. In 2014, he has created Orev, a type family that consists of 18 fonts, including 9 weights available as normal and oblique style. It’s a unique and modern sans typeface, which is well suited for a variety of typographic applications such as headlines and small texts. The Orev font family supports multiple languages and is available as both webfont and desktop font.

The Tempo font family was designed by R. Hunter Middleton and released between 1930 and 1931. The instant success of Futura in 1927 led to many similar designs, and Tempo is the version produced by the Ludlow foundry for large headlines in newpapers. Like Futura, Tempo font is basically geometric, but shows some humanistic influence. Tempo is popular for newspaper and commercial printing, and the heavy condensed font is excellent for headlines.

Lend a little Jazz Age elegance to your next project with this tasty typeface, a faithful rendering of Eduard Ege's eponymous Ege Schrift, released by the Genzsch and Heyse foundry of Hamburg in 1921. For best results at large sizes, choose the TrueType version, rendered at a full 2,048 UPM. Both versions include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, as well as localization for Moldovan and Romanian.

Original Foundry: TypeType Original name: TT Masters Pinatas Masters is a very emotional typeface. This typeface will add to your design sincerity and warmth. Pinatas Masters typeface consist of 4 different subfamilies: Pinatas Masters, Pinatas Masters Birds, Pinatas Masters Rough and Pinatas Masters Condensed. Each subfamily consists of 5 styles: Thin, Light, Regular, Bold and Black. Scope of typeface: DIY, handmade stuff, interior design, infographics, graphic design, logotypes, packaging, design of exhibitions, presentations.

P22 Blox is a modular system of shapes that can build letterforms and abstract patterns. Created as a working prototype for the letterpress P22 Blox project from P22 Analog and Starshaped Press, this system of shapes presents a unique approach to designing letterforms with a limited set of variables. Based on the American Type Founders 1944 modular metal type ornament system... you can have hours of fun building letters, patterns and more.

Lavah Pro is the upgrade from old version of Lava Arabic 1.0. It's Arabic condensed/narrow with grunge and rough style for vintage style posters, brands or ads maybe for food ads or movie poster. Lavah Pro is supported by OpenType Features with many Stylistic Alternates and Discretionary Ligatures and It's support Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Latin. Designed and Created by Ibrahim Hamdi Copyright © 2019 by Protype Foundry. All rights reserved.

Designed at ParaType in 1990 by Elvira Slysh. Based on Brush Script of American Type Founders, 1972, by Robert E. Smith. À popular and widely used script face. Designed to give the impression of letters written with a brush with coherent lowercase, giving a fairly black overall color. Ideal for display work and wherever an informal, handwritten style is required. For use in posters, newspapers and magazines, advertisements, signs and many other informal applications.

Estricta font family has been designed for Graviton Font Foundry by Pablo Balcells in 2017. It is a sans serif typeface with a geometrical and mechanic appearence, its sharp, angular edges provide a strong and solid design. It has been conceived to be most suitable for short and middle length text blocks, as well as on all sized headlines. Estricta consists of 12 styles. Each containing small caps and glyph coverage for several languages.

An inspiration for two fonts of FA Modernista was the second page of Polish vanguard magazine "Praesens" Nr 1 from 1926 designed (as the first page) by Henryk Stażewski. The type applied - Baccarat was a sans serif from Polish foundry Jan Idźkowski i S-ka. Fonts FA Modernista imitate the effect of letterpress with spilled printing ink. Letters of two cuts vary in distortion as in the old days of letterpress technology.

Bayannur is a typeface published by Monoco Type Foundry inspired by Arabic Calligraphy in Chinese Tradition. This font has extensive Latin script support with many ligatures and stylistic sets, as well as Cyrillic and unique Arabic design with contextual alternates and many ligatures. The glyphs in this font also specifically support Uyghur script typing*. Abdurrahman Hanif, designer based in Jakarta, trying to develop this font as his appreciation for this beautiful Art of Calligraphy.

Mensura font family has been designed for Graviton Font Foundry by Pablo Balcells in 2012. It is a modular, geometric typeface with subtle rounded angles that provides a soft, pleasent appearence. It has been conceived to be primarily a display typeface, but given its clarity it can also be used for composing short and intermediate length texts. Mensura consists of 8 styles and 4 weights plus italics. Each containing small caps and several alternate characters.

Tuerca font family has been designed for Graviton Font Foundry by Pablo Balcells in 2021. It is a slightly extended sans serif typeface with a strong technical appearence. Its squared, angular shapes provide a futuristic and robust aesthetics. It has been conceived to be most suitable for logos, headlines and display design pieces as well as short length text blocks. Tuerca consists of 8 styles, each containing small caps and glyph coverage for several languages.

Nafta Extended Font is the Pro version of the free Nafta Font. It features a huge language support, from all European languages to even Cyrillic and Vietnamese. The Font features handwritten marker shapes with natural edges. Nafta Extended is a brush font which you can use and enjoy again and again, for anything from promotional material and handwritten quotes, to product packaging, merchandise, and branding projects. Made by Krisjanis Mezulis ar Wildones Type Foundry.

Binaria font family has been designed for Graviton Font Foundry by Pablo Balcells in 2018. It is a sans serif typeface with a mechanic appearence. Its squared, angular shapes provide a futuristic and robust design. It has been conceived to be most suitable for logos, headlines and display design pieces as well as short length text blocks. Binaria consists of 12 styles, each containing small caps and glyph coverage for several languages.

It’s said that what goes around, comes around, and there’s no better proof of the saying than this typeface. Originally released as Latin Antique by the Stephenson Blake foundry in the 1880s, this face achieved renewed popularity in the 1950s, and it’s back again as, like, Coolsville, Daddy-o. Both versions include the complete Unicode Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, as well as localization for Lithuanian, Moldovan and Romanian.

In 1936, Erich Mollowitz designed a typeface named »Rheingold Kräftig« for the German type foundry J. D. Trennert & Sohn (Hamburg-Altona). The original letterforms have been extended and beefed up a bit, and the result is a rollicking, righteously retro romp…a perfect choice when you want to strut your stuff. The PC Postscript, Truetype and Opentype versions contain the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

The typeface of Quan Slim is based on the successful Quan font family by font foundry Typesketchbook. Font designer Chatnarong Jingsuphatada created Quan Slim as a condensed version to Quan. Both type families consist of eight weights plus obliques and additional rounded versions. Quan Slim’s typeface has a clean and modern sans serif appearance. This modern geometric font is very legible and can be used for headlines as well as small and long text.

Tulk's Victorian Banner revives the tradion of 'Banner' typefaces-lettering within their own lozenge or cartouche, that made such an appealing feature in many old type foundries catalogues. Tulk's Victorian Banner makes a wonderful feature of lettering in any piece of period inspired design. It compleiments our recent Fitzgerald space especially well, but can be used alongside any typeface of your choice where you want to bring a touch of period flamboyance.

This robust, roly-poly typeface is patterned after a 1974 release from the Ludwig & Mayer foundry of Frankfurt am Main named Big Band, and designed by Karlgeorg Hoefer. The type color is even darker than the original, and the result is a delightful face that will definitely attract attention. The PC Postscript, Truetype and Opentype versions contain the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

The Boston Type Foundry called the pattern for this elegant typeface "Moslem," suggesting the exotic appeal of faraway lands. The face succeeds in fulfilling its promise, with remarkably little extraneous fussiness. The font's name suggests that it's a wise choice for headlines which tout the lure of distant charms. Both versions of the font include complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1524 character sets, with localization for Moldovan, Romanian and Turkish.

The Cleveland Type Foundry strikes again, with this delightful little number from their 1893 specimen book, originally named "Mikado". This version takes its name from one of the characters in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta of the same name, and the name aptly describes the tasty nature of this frolicking face. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252 and CE 1250 character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Based on William H. Page’s Clarendon Extended wood type from the 1800s, Clarified JNL is digitally available in both regular and oblique versions. In the days of wood and metal type, foundries often made changes to an existing design to make their font more unique and different from their competitors. Clarified JNL is different from Clarenwood JNL (which is partially based on another wood type Clarendon and features many alternate letter forms).

Attica is a slab typeface with inverted contrast that was inspired by Caslon’s Italian type and by Aldo Novarese’s Estro, published by the turinese foundry Nebiolo. We wanted to develop a wood type typeface and we designed the complete alphabet with a flat long brush and slowly we did the whole character set. Attica contains a big set of icons and dingbats. Enjoy it. More About Opentype Features: https://bit.ly/opentype-rsz

Veritas is a serif text family. It is a narrow-width typeface, with a taller x-height than Times Roman for added legibility, but maintains a similar character count in text. It is typeface designed for publication, newspaper (anywhere where narrow columns are necessary) and identity design. It is exquisitely spaced and kerned, even in European characters. The Digital Type Review states "...Veritas is one of the most important contributions ... from any independent foundry."

Cairoli was originally cast by Italian foundry Nebiolo in 1928, as a license of a design by Wagner & Schmidt, known as Neue moderne Grotesk. Its solid grotesque design (later developed as Aurora by Weber and Akzidenz-Grotesk by Haas) was extremely successful: it anticipated the versatility of sans serif superfamilies thanks to its range of weights and widths, while still retaining some eccentricities from end-of the century lead and wood type. In 2020 the Italiantype team directed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Mario De Libero decided to produce a revival of Cairoli, extending the original weight and width range and developing both a faithful Classic version and a Now variant. The Cairoli Classic family keeps the original low x-height range, very display-oriented, and normalizes the design while emphasizing the original peculiarities like the hook cuts in curved letters, the high-waisted uppercase R and the squared ovals of the letterforms. Cairoli Now is developed with an higher x-height, more suited for text and digital use, and adds to the original design deeper ink-traps and round punctuation, while slightly correcting the curves for a more contemporary look. Born as an exercise in subtlety and love for lost letterforms, Cairoli stands, like its lead ancestor from a century ago, at the crossroads between artsy craftsmanship and industrial needs. Its deviations from the norm are small enough to give it personality without affecting readability, and the expanded weight and width range make it into a workhorse superfamily with open type features (alternates, stylistic sets, positional numbers) and coverage of over two hundred languages using the latin extended alphabet.